


Precognition

by Rakkogaki



Category: Caves of Qud (Video Game)
Genre: Short, caves of qud - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28050564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rakkogaki/pseuds/Rakkogaki
Summary: A vagrant questions their traveling companion about newfound powers.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Precognition

“What am I, to you?”

A week ago we had crouched, motionless, in the disheveled eater orchards. The canopy shade was our cover. Sandstone chimneys funnelled hot air, and our scent, up and away from the sultan fanatics congregating below. Shwrurumh tracking their movements through a thin telescope, I with my naked eye. We were casing the joint, but we weren’t seeing the same things.

“...You’re my friend?” I cocked an eyebrow, unsure what prompted this.

“Right now, I am.” Looking past the campfire. Measured, neutral delivery.

Shwrurumh had peered at me sidelong from behind the telescope, when they thought I wasn’t looking. I had barely noticed it, and upon later reflection wrote it off as nerves. I must have misread them. They wait for a moment, after their remark, but don’t leave time for a response of any substance before continuing,

“But you know the future, now.” They’re prodding me, and I don’t want to deal with it. I sigh. 

“I don’t know the future, Shwrurumh. I imagine an action, and predict what the reaction will be. That’s it.”

“That’s what you were doing back at the orchard, then.” It was. I was seeing ahead. 

Two weeks ago, I had awoken, took breakfast with Shwrurum, and ducked behind a shale formation to relieve myself. As I walked back to camp, I heard a piercing crack, as though something had snapped directly in front of my face. I blinked, and Shwrurumh was sitting in front of a clean plate, watching expectantly for their diced worm and applesauce. I felt a familiar pressure in my bowels. This was the first time.

“Yeah. We made off, right? With the bracelet, the munitions… Quite a bit of water.” I take a swig, for emphasis. “And without a scratch, even.”

Yes. We had danced across the acid pools, dervish-like, untouchable. The sultan’s janissaries, hooting, could do nothing. The path forward was scorched into my mind, and I had pulled Shwrurumh along, joyously, blind-firing incendiaries. I had already seen them find their marks.

“You knew it all beforehand.”

“Mmm. It took a while, though. To find the right path.”

It had. In searching for that perfect heist, I had seen the both of us dissolved, impaled, smashed, incinerated. So many times. If they knew, if they had seen what I had. This irritated me.

Now Shwrurumh meets my eyes.

“Do you remember the fort, back there near the pig pens? We scoured that place for the better part of a day. Anything we could sell, we took. This time, though? You barely bothered.”

They wait, expectantly. I don’t know what for. Then:

“The good stuff. In the orchard, you knew exactly where to search... exactly which corpses to strip, and which you could ignore.”

They had changed aspect now, and their discomfort showed in their fidgeting, the repetitive shifting of clouded glass beads between their feelers. I thought: how many times had we died for that trinket?

“Yeah. I saw what was worth taking.”

“Have you seen my corpse, then? Have you stripped me for trinkets, to see what was worth taking?”

...

“When you’re seeing ahead, when you’re making these perfect plans… How do you judge? From here, our path will only become more dangerous. Will we reach a point where I’m worth sacrificing? When I watch you lately, it’s like you’re not even there. What are you seeing?

CRACK

...

“What am I, to you?”

“You’re my friend.”

“Right now, I am.”

“And forever onward.”

I drape an opaque cloth over our glowsphere and douse the campfire.


End file.
